


In The Woods Somewhere...

by the_fates_of_fiction



Series: The Sunsetters [1]
Category: Life of the Party D&D (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Blood and Gore, I Needed to Write It, Mild Gore, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, at the end, barely, before i forgot the idea, comfort????, i still love you but, its implied comfort, no beta we die like men, ohohohoho~ i am not sorry~, sorry not sorry Astra, this fic will make no sense what so ever but i don care
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:13:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23998795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_fates_of_fiction/pseuds/the_fates_of_fiction
Summary: It has to be a nightmare.Just another dream.It's safe, nothing can hurt you.All you have to do is wake up...
Series: The Sunsetters [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1888693
Kudos: 8





	In The Woods Somewhere...

**Author's Note:**

> I would recommend listening to Hozier's 'In the Woods Somewhere' while reading this, since it was the song that inspired me to write this little fic  
> Warning: Angst ahead and some,,,, confusing things  
> it makes more sense (maybe) when you have context, but because writing all that context would take so long and I am but one woman, you're getting this in its place!  
> I hope you enjoy~ ;3

He could hear music, music that he knew so very well. It was one of his mother’s songs that she would play to him, and in turn, he would play them for his friends- his family.   
  
But it sounded  _ wrong. _ _  
_ _  
_ He didn’t know any other way to describe it other than broken, distorted, oh so very  _ wrong. _ _  
_ It was all around him, no matter where he went in that dark and scary forest, it was always right next to his hear, playing and playing and playing.   
He tried to block it out, focus on something- anything, anything to try and get it to stop. He covered his ears, he tried to play a song of his own, but he found he couldn’t.   
Every time he tried to drown out that horrid echo of a once-beloved song with one of his own, it was sucked up into the silence, every time he tried to make it quiet down it only grew louder.   
  
And what was even worse was that he  _ knew  _ this was a dream, he  _ knew  _ that it wasn’t real and couldn’t hurt him, he knew that any second he would wake up in the barracks with his friends there to greet him.   
But why, why couldn’t he wake up?   
It was like something, someone was keeping him in this nightmare, making him feel like he was going  _ insane _ .   
  
He couldn’t stop either, he couldn’t stop moving forward, deeper into that forest, because if he did the voices would start up again.   
The voices telling him about… awful,  _ awful  _ things. Things that couldn’t be true, they just couldn’t. They would tell him that he was safe there, that someone was protecting him, making sure that he was taken care of, but that couldn’t be true at all.   
  
He didn’t feel safe.    
He didn’t feel like someone was protecting him.   
He felt scared. He felt like a lost little boy, just wanting to go home but couldn’t. How long had he been there? How long had he been wandering, the same dark and twisted song ringing in his ears? The whispers of voices that he recognised but couldn’t put a face or name to, how long had they been following him?   
  
There was no sun there, just darkness and creatures that he could never quite make out. There was a path, he had followed it for Gods knows how long, before it split into a crossroads, neither seemed that nice to go down; full of whispers and groans and music.   
Then, all of a sudden, he heard singing.   
It wasn’t nice singing, it sounded guttural, distorted and cruel somehow. Without even knowing it his feet began to move in the direction of the singing, a part of him telling him to relax, to give himself to the music.   
  
He was safe there.   
He was protected.   
He was taken care of.   
  
He was suddenly shaken from some sort of trance by a loud, blood-curdling scream in the direction that his feet had been taking him. Two halves of him fought inside his head, one telling him to run away, run as quickly as his feet could carry him away from the scream.   
The other telling him to run to the sound, someone could be in danger, could use his help, how could he just leave them?   
His feet began to move, fast or slow he couldn’t tell, how long did he run for? He didn’t know, but by the end, his legs were tired and aching, begging to rest.   
He heard a scream again, closer this time, he heard someone yell, crying out for help and his feet continued to carry him towards the call.   
  
Suddenly he felt heat on his face, just past a large bush, before his brain could even think he was pushing through it and what he saw on the other side…   
A hand flew to his mouth, the air ripped from his lungs.   
There was a young woman lying, motionless in the dirk, covered head to toe in cuts and burns, green smoke slowly dissipating from around her neck. He tried to back away from the body but a wall of fire stopped him, and it  _ burned  _ his skin just from being close to it. He tried to look away, at anything other than...  _ that _ , but he felt that his eyes kept being drawn to look in front of him again and he could only fight it for so long before his eyes were drawn back to it.   
  


He gasped softly, there was a figure standing over the body now, its back to him. But even then he would recognise it, but he couldn’t believe that what he was seeing was true.   
It had long, dark turquoise messy hair, dark horns curving back with mother of pearl on the tips, one of them was broken in half. Its clothes were torn, muddied, and splattered in fresh blood, its clawed hands covered in red, dripping onto the dirt.    
And it was humming softly, humming a distorted and broken version of one of his beloved songs, a familiar lute, vines now wrapping around it was in its hands.   
  
It didn’t move, not even to breath. It just stood there, looking over the body as it hummed. Astra tried to move away, taking a very small and cautious step back. Suddenly his eyes were locked into the gaze of this… thing. It’s pure golden eyes, glowing in the firelight.    
There was a dark hole in its chest, over where a heart should be.   
Astras breathing stopped, the forest was silent, not even the whispers or that dreaded song was left.   
The only sounds were fire crackling around him and sharp drumming in his head.   
  
The silence was cut by the sound of chuckling, the thing in front of him never breaking eye contact as a cruel smile spread across its lips, revealing sharp-pointed teeth, blood trickled out of its mouth, dripping down its chin.    
  
“ _ I have... to ask, _ ” it began, its voice a whisper as its words echoed. Astra couldn’t move, he wanted to but something was keeping him in place, his feet refusing to take another step as this horrid creature slowly walking closer to him, the ground beneath it dying with each step.    
It spoke again, mere inches from Astras face as he stared into his own eyes, but they couldn’t be his. They just couldn’t….   
Could they?   
  
“ _ Why…. _ ” It began, its smile slowly slipping off its face, its voice becoming strained and angry. “ _ Did you…. survive.” _ _  
_ _  
_ Astra wanted to say something, ask something,  _ anything  _ to try and understand what it was talking about, but any words died on his tongue as a bloody and clawed hand tightly wrapped around his throat.    
Its nails dug into his neck as he choked out a gasp, muffled by the banging in his head growing louder and louder until it just...   
  
“ _ And  _ **_I_ ** _... had to  _ **_die?_ ** _ ” _ _  
_ _  
_ Stopped.    
  
Everything stopped.   
  
It all went dark, the sight of burning eyes staring at him fell away from him as he let out a scream, waking up in a cold sweat, tears streaming down his cheeks. There was a muffled voice coming from the other side of his door, sounding worried.   
But he couldn’t completely hear them, he couldn’t hear anything other than his own heartbeat and breath as he began to sob into his shaking hands.   
  
He didn’t have any energy to do anything else other than cry, his thoughts continuing to go back to what  _ it  _ had said.   
He didn’t notice when arms wrapped around him, holding him close as they spoke hushed words to him that he couldn’t make out.   
  
As he sobbed, his whole body shaking, he couldn’t deny it.   
He couldn’t deny what that thing was….   
That thing that killed that poor woman, and maybe many more.   
That sung that awful song, drawing people in.   
  
That thing... was _him._   



End file.
